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alisarae's Reviews (1.65k)
I guess I am into reading turn of the century books about fasting.
Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle (and around 100 other books), performed many dietetic experiments on himself, including being a raw-food vegan for 3 years (Although he liked how he felt and how little time it took to prepare meals, he stopped when it wasn't giving him the energy he needed to write for 18 hours a day). This book is a compilation of articles that he published about his experiences with fasting and many letters from readers about their own fasts. It does appear that fasting ~2 weeks can be the cure for many dietary related illnesses and maladies, and can push the reset button on poor eating habits. Contemporary stories that I've heard agree.
Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle (and around 100 other books), performed many dietetic experiments on himself, including being a raw-food vegan for 3 years (Although he liked how he felt and how little time it took to prepare meals, he stopped when it wasn't giving him the energy he needed to write for 18 hours a day). This book is a compilation of articles that he published about his experiences with fasting and many letters from readers about their own fasts. It does appear that fasting ~2 weeks can be the cure for many dietary related illnesses and maladies, and can push the reset button on poor eating habits. Contemporary stories that I've heard agree.
Absolutely fascinating. Will 100% be reading this again and I may need to buy a hard copy.
This is a thorough history of how the Bible came to exist in its current form. It explains the history of the existence of each book of the Bible (far more interesting than you might suppose). It also gets into big picture differences between Jewish and Christian interpretations and some of the finer details about how seemingly opposite sectarian interpretations of the same text can exist. The final part of the book is devoted to the history of the various translations of the Bible, and theories/concerns that translators need to take into account. The most interesting thing for me was learning about the differences between what the Bible literally says (like, what is actually present in the text) and what Christian/Jewish doctrine teaches. There are some...gaps.
It is written by an Anglican scholar, but it is not necessarily written for Bible believers. It is for anyone who has a curiosity about the Bible’s place in history and culture.
This is a thorough history of how the Bible came to exist in its current form. It explains the history of the existence of each book of the Bible (far more interesting than you might suppose). It also gets into big picture differences between Jewish and Christian interpretations and some of the finer details about how seemingly opposite sectarian interpretations of the same text can exist. The final part of the book is devoted to the history of the various translations of the Bible, and theories/concerns that translators need to take into account. The most interesting thing for me was learning about the differences between what the Bible literally says (like, what is actually present in the text) and what Christian/Jewish doctrine teaches. There are some...gaps.
It is written by an Anglican scholar, but it is not necessarily written for Bible believers. It is for anyone who has a curiosity about the Bible’s place in history and culture.
Fan-tast-tic.
I’ve never taken a course in statistics and so I am very bad at spotting errors in statistical reasoning. Author Angela Saini is excellent at pointing out logical fallacies, shoddy research, pseudoscience, and poor statistical analysis. In this book, Saini tracks the contemporary descendents of nazi-era race research and shows how it is subtly and blatently alive in Western scientific institutions today. It is scary, friends.
The fact is that surface level appearances (skin, eyes, hair) are defined differently around the world, and those genes make up a small fraction of a person’s total DNA anyways (think “tip of the iceburg”). We have waaay more DNA going on than what we can see with the eye. So statistically speaking, an Indian living in London is just as likely to have the majority of her DNA in common with her white neighbor as she is to have with a random person from India. That blew my mind, to be honest. Our DNA as a species is far more mixed than it is separated.
Race as a cultural construct, a reference to people of different social cultures, is still important for our world today. But as a biological definer? That has been proven in study after study to be useless grasping at straws. So why do even well-intentioned educated people continue to try? Saini believes that we all want to know that we are special, that we belong somewhere, and well, that we are superior.
I’ve never taken a course in statistics and so I am very bad at spotting errors in statistical reasoning. Author Angela Saini is excellent at pointing out logical fallacies, shoddy research, pseudoscience, and poor statistical analysis. In this book, Saini tracks the contemporary descendents of nazi-era race research and shows how it is subtly and blatently alive in Western scientific institutions today. It is scary, friends.
The fact is that surface level appearances (skin, eyes, hair) are defined differently around the world, and those genes make up a small fraction of a person’s total DNA anyways (think “tip of the iceburg”). We have waaay more DNA going on than what we can see with the eye. So statistically speaking, an Indian living in London is just as likely to have the majority of her DNA in common with her white neighbor as she is to have with a random person from India. That blew my mind, to be honest. Our DNA as a species is far more mixed than it is separated.
Race as a cultural construct, a reference to people of different social cultures, is still important for our world today. But as a biological definer? That has been proven in study after study to be useless grasping at straws. So why do even well-intentioned educated people continue to try? Saini believes that we all want to know that we are special, that we belong somewhere, and well, that we are superior.
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The linework is so beautiful, crisp, and fresh—it sounds contemporary. And yeah, a lot like Salinger, but better.
This is entertaining comedy horror. Campy, tropey, but the characters are wholehearted and make you root for them. The constant riffs on corporate big box retail stores are funny too.
This book is a classic whodunnit detective novel, but the hardboiled cop is a hardboiled woman pressed into finding out who really killed her family That Night. Her side kick is the treasurer of a true-crime afficionado club, hah. The ending of the story is messy and complicated, and I’m so glad it is. I sure do love Gillian Flynn.
“The private and the mundane become intimacy.”
Aside from that quote I liked (quoting from memory here)... this book is really preachy. It is well-written, but really strong in the second-wave feminism sort of way. And like, it repeatedly acknowledges that it IS like that, but does nothing to get more in sync with third-wave conversations. It was almost like the editor was like, “Look, Meg, I know you are such a child of the second-wave that you would have to do years of listening and reading to get caught up, but we want to put out another book next year. So let’s just embrace that rich white girl feminism of yours and make that book that is set in the 2000’s-present written like it is set in the 1970’s, sprinkle in a couple mentions of ‘complainers on the internet criticize the main characters for not being intersectional,’ and get it to press.”
To be fair, you could argue that the glaring holes were intentional—second-wave icond Faith Frank is dealing with the task of working to advance feminism in a world that has moved on without her, and she pulls out the “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” excuse whenever she can. It’s a source of plot conflict. But really, she and the author appear to have the same problem here. Cuz why couldn’t this book have been written differently? What if Greer had stirred up more conflict by suggesting Faith address class and race differences instead of merely suggesting that Faith get a blog as a way to “be relevent”? Or have Greer’s best friend Z confront Greer about the Privilege Blinders, esp since Z works as a crisis counselor in Chicago’s South Side?
ANYWAYZ.... preachy and chalky.
Aside from that quote I liked (quoting from memory here)... this book is really preachy. It is well-written, but really strong in the second-wave feminism sort of way. And like, it repeatedly acknowledges that it IS like that, but does nothing to get more in sync with third-wave conversations. It was almost like the editor was like, “Look, Meg, I know you are such a child of the second-wave that you would have to do years of listening and reading to get caught up, but we want to put out another book next year. So let’s just embrace that rich white girl feminism of yours and make that book that is set in the 2000’s-present written like it is set in the 1970’s, sprinkle in a couple mentions of ‘complainers on the internet criticize the main characters for not being intersectional,’ and get it to press.”
To be fair, you could argue that the glaring holes were intentional—second-wave icond Faith Frank is dealing with the task of working to advance feminism in a world that has moved on without her, and she pulls out the “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” excuse whenever she can. It’s a source of plot conflict. But really, she and the author appear to have the same problem here. Cuz why couldn’t this book have been written differently? What if Greer had stirred up more conflict by suggesting Faith address class and race differences instead of merely suggesting that Faith get a blog as a way to “be relevent”? Or have Greer’s best friend Z confront Greer about the Privilege Blinders, esp since Z works as a crisis counselor in Chicago’s South Side?
ANYWAYZ.... preachy and chalky.
Hot damn, I was barely able to keep up with this woman!
What blew my mind the most in all of these essays was how McMillan Cotton is able to conceive a third position. She is not satisfied with the right’s answer, nor with the left’s answer. She wants to flip the table and opt out of their system altogether. Her “takes” (they are much weightier and sharper than a simple hot take) are ideas that I honestly haven’t read before. When we read endless iterations of the same, someone who is like, “While you keep playing your silly game together, I’m here to propose a completely new game,” is, at times, jaw dropping. No wonder she gets so much pushback—nobody likes to realize they are lying in bed with the enemy, that their lifestyle is complicit with and dependent on the opposition.
The final essay in the book is about the author’s desire to see a black woman have a single full time job as an opinion writer. The rest of her essays certainly make a case for why she would be an amazing candidate to take that role, should it ever be made available.
What blew my mind the most in all of these essays was how McMillan Cotton is able to conceive a third position. She is not satisfied with the right’s answer, nor with the left’s answer. She wants to flip the table and opt out of their system altogether. Her “takes” (they are much weightier and sharper than a simple hot take) are ideas that I honestly haven’t read before. When we read endless iterations of the same, someone who is like, “While you keep playing your silly game together, I’m here to propose a completely new game,” is, at times, jaw dropping. No wonder she gets so much pushback—nobody likes to realize they are lying in bed with the enemy, that their lifestyle is complicit with and dependent on the opposition.
The final essay in the book is about the author’s desire to see a black woman have a single full time job as an opinion writer. The rest of her essays certainly make a case for why she would be an amazing candidate to take that role, should it ever be made available.
Fascinating, maddening, and thought-provoking.
I had never heard of Henrietta Lacks (I mean, the book is 10 years old, so I had heard of the book/film), and I don't remember learning about HeLa cells in my biology classes, though I'm sure I did. There is so much in this book beyond the science—it's probably 15% science (with enough explanation to give a context to those of us who have forgotten or never really understood in the first place), 15% ethics discussions (nerd alert—I could read a whole book just about that and I loved the afterward, which explains current debates around medical ethics with companies like 23andMe, possible areas where Big Pharma is open to lawsuits, etc), and the rest is about the lives of the Lacks family. Their history is complicated and includes: slavery (they are genetic descendants of white slave owners, ahem), inbreeding and health issues caused by that, murder, con artists, and pentecostalism (the author is an atheist who had never been to church before meeting the Lacks gang, so that was fun).
Highly recommended if you like reading human-interest non-fiction that gives context to current science. I do!
I had never heard of Henrietta Lacks (I mean, the book is 10 years old, so I had heard of the book/film), and I don't remember learning about HeLa cells in my biology classes, though I'm sure I did. There is so much in this book beyond the science—it's probably 15% science (with enough explanation to give a context to those of us who have forgotten or never really understood in the first place), 15% ethics discussions (nerd alert—I could read a whole book just about that and I loved the afterward, which explains current debates around medical ethics with companies like 23andMe, possible areas where Big Pharma is open to lawsuits, etc), and the rest is about the lives of the Lacks family. Their history is complicated and includes: slavery (they are genetic descendants of white slave owners, ahem), inbreeding and health issues caused by that, murder, con artists, and pentecostalism (the author is an atheist who had never been to church before meeting the Lacks gang, so that was fun).
Highly recommended if you like reading human-interest non-fiction that gives context to current science. I do!