Scientists can be dumb sometimes. We’ve all read headlines like scientists finally prove water is wet and think well DUH! That’s how I felt about animals having thoughts and feelings. Honestly unless you’ve NEVER in your life been around animals, watched animals, seen an animal documentary I don’t see how you could doubt such things exist. However that was the prevalent view of science until about the mid-1990s that animals were composed of instinctual and stimulus reactions incapable of emotion or thought but capable of imitation for reward (stimulus response). Like me Virginia Morrell was insulted by this too. She knew her dog played, planned playing, picking just the right toy for it. She’d been around animals in her assignments for National Geographic. So she set out to write a book about the people who were scientifically proving what those of us who have looked into an animal’s eyes or watched an ant hill already knew. Then she wrote a book about what these people saw and are proving. (more…)
I put this on my to-read list (again it’s over 300 books!) after reading her Wicked Plants. I chose this as my reentry into non-fiction reading partly because how much I enjoyed Wicked Plants. I will say I enjoyed this book about the fruits, woods, spices, and herbs that make up our alcoholic beverages. However, I did not enjoy it as much a Wicked Plants. It’s not the author’s fault I think but rather my inability to drink any more. I was left wanting to know what a liquor made from violets taste like over crushed ice mixed with seltzer on a hot day in France. How a Pimm’s Cup is refreshing when ruling India while trying act like I’m in Britain. How beer made with green hops taste different from the beer I know. But alas I was left with the images and descriptions only if I want to keep taking my medications. However I do have a son and husband who drink so who knows I might get to watch too. If not trust me some character somewhere in my writings will know that violet liquor and LOVE it.
After a few heavy books – neurosurgeon, corporate politics, and climbing Mt. Everest I was ready for a light read. I picked Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews. I didn’t know it was the second of a series but the premise intrigued me. Southern socialite has her money swindled in a sweetheart scam leaving her only a seedy motel. She tries to put her life back together. As she is doing so she learns where the con-man is and goes to con her money back from him with a little help from her friends. Fun huh? It was!, definitely a beach blanket read of the first class chick lit type, nothing heavy here.
Does moral obligation change with altitude? That’s the root question pondered but never answered as Michael Kodas retells his and Nils Atezana’s quests in 2004 to summit Mt. Everest. He recounts also the famous death of David Sharp early on to illustrate his points. The tales of lies, abuse, theft, fraud, and more when ultimately lives are at stake and most look to shirk blame leaves one more fearful of the humans on the climb than the environment in which they climb. (more…)
I’ve started doing scheduled postings and it has helped me get back to blogging regularly. I was pondering what could I do to add a regular day to my Anything Goes Tuesdays and Throwback Thursdays. I came up with Memoir Mondays where I tell a little memory of mine. It seems people think I’ve had an interesting life. I don’t think it’s anything beyond the mundane but I’ve been told it is. Maybe like many Southerners I have a great
I like informative but fun non-fiction reads. I love to learn about things but I don’t want the textbook droning feel. That’s why after hearing a radio interview of Caitlin Doughty I picked up her book. She and I hold some shared views on death, more on that below. Also I learned something about the funeral industry as well as about cremation in the interview. I found the book a page turner that I consumed voraciously. I highly recommend it but then again I’m one who still recommends Behind The Formaldehyde Curtain By Jessica Mitford decades after I read it my freshman year in college. If you find frank discussion of what happens to bodies after death disturbing, heck, if you find frank talk about death itself in relations to you and other humans disturbing this book is not for you (nor is that link to the Formaldehyde Curtain above). BUT if like me you are curious even a little bit about death, how we do it and how others deal with it the book is for you and so are my comments below. (more…)
This week is Banned Book Week. I have to admit I’ve never met a book I thought should be banned. I’ve read many books that were banned at one point or another and always came away disappointed. You see when my folks would get me a ‘banned’ book I thought there HAD to be something exciting and salacious about it to earn such a dubious honor. Then I read Grapes of Wrath, Catcher In The Rye, The Great Gatsby, 1984, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Clockwork Orange, and so on… I came away with great stories but nothing so salacious that I saw any reason to ban it. At first being a skeptical high schooler I thought maybe parents got together and banned it to make teenagers want to read good literature. Then I thought maybe it was banned as a marketing gimmick. Finally I came to the sad realization that no these books were banned because there are people out there who want to control our thoughts. They want to decide what’s okay to write and thus think about and what’s not. They are under the delusion if you don’t look at stuff you don’t like it’ll go away. (more…)
Okay here’s something I’m going to try to do. Throw back Thursday posts – old things I have that I’ll share. Some are to laugh at myself like this one here. Others I imagine will interest me enough to share for other reasons.
Here’s what I know about that picture – it’s me! I’m in my maternal grandparent’s house in Laurens, South Carolina’s guest bathroom. That potty was wooden. Which at the time I thought was odd. (more…)
You know you are in for something different with a subtitle of Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking. Actually that’s why I picked up the book, was that subtitle. You see despite all my cheery disposition I’m a cynic at heart. Actually, just like Garfield admitted to Jon he is a cynic wearing a cat suit, I’m one wearing a human suit.
I’ve not embraced my inner cynic much beyond comedic effect I thought but Burkeman taught me what I had labelled as a cynic all these years was really an ancient Stoic. No, not stoic in the modern sense of enduring things without a peep of complaint. (What why are you laughing? I don’t complain THAT much do I?) But rather as the ancient philosophy of accepting the unpleasantness of life as reality that can’t be avoided makes the pleasant things sweeter and frees us to enjoy them more.
Okay, I see you are confused. Let me use the example Burkeman does in the beginning to illustrate this concept. DO NOT THINK OF A WHITE BEAR. What’s the first thing that came to mind reading that? Yep, a white bear. Burkeman explains the psychological reason for that and why the more you try not to think of the bear more bears there are in your thoughts. But the point is the basis of positive thinking is DO NOT THINK NEGATIVE THOUGHTS. So what comes to mind… that’s the point of the book. The more you try not to be negative, the more you check to see if you are happy, the more you notice things that make you unhappy.
Once he’s established that concept Burkeman goes through several ways and philosophies that embrace the negative aspects of life in order to enjoy life. He dedicates a chapter to the ancient Stoics and even visits some jolly modern ones. He explores how Buddhist techniques of watching thoughts go by without engaging them or why not letting what you think define you brings happiness. That the passing thoughts are ‘the noisy breather in the week long silent meditation retreat is out to get me so I’ll get him first’ doesn’t mean you are a bad person or will act on it. Yes Burkeman goes to such a retreat and has similar thoughts.
In the end when the book was over I found out I was happier for having read it. I didn’t feel the need to go DO something that wasn’t me. I’d learned my old technique of cheering myself up with “It could be worse it could be _________” and filling in the blank with the most rotten thing I could think of… was the basis of Stoic philosophy. I learned that in many ways I’m Mexican in my view of death. That the corpse meditation of Buddhism didn’t threaten me as much as other lesser phobias. I am more comfortable with death, the worst case scenario, and facing being uncomfortable than I am with positive thinking. Actually I’m happier among those things than I would be at a motivational seminars. I now know why affirmations make me feel worse not better, at times to the point of evoking anxiety. Sure life sucks sometimes but that makes the times it doesn’t that much more remarkable, sweeter, and for a Stoic (former cynic) like me happier in those moments.
If you are like me and the ‘rah-rah let’s get going to do this thing’ speeches make you roll your eyes and think PUH-leeze! Or if trying to visual success just makes you feel like you have too far to go, or affirmations just reinforce that you aren’t there yet – this book might be for you. We aren’t rainbows, glitter, and unicorn kind of people and that’s okay- we can be happy too. Burkeman just reminds us how to do it our way.
How I found this book is by a podcast from Australia. First let me confess, I love the unexplained/unsolved/mysterious of the world from tales of ghosts to UFO to unsolved murders I’m up to hear the story. One of the ways I regularly feed this is by listening to podcasts. Now, Audible Books is a sponsor of many podcasts. One particular one I enjoy regularly is Mysterious Universe. During the plug for Audible the two hosts often recommend books they have enjoyed, it was here I learned of Wicked Plants. I will never eye a plant the same again.
Wicked Plants is non-fiction that I would say falls into what I call readable non-fiction. Think of two of my favorite authors – Mary Roach and Bill Bryson – their non-fiction books are humorous, informative, and enjoyable. This one fall right in there with those and I will be looking for other titles by Amy Stewart. In this book she takes each type of ‘wicked’ plant (plants that can harm you) goes through the bad boys of that type, tells what they do to you, give you a few interesting tales to hang the facts onto in your memory, then names familiar relatives of the bad boy. For example – Poison Ivy gives you a rash. She explains how this works, why some are barely sensitive and others are ‘exquisitely” sensitive, and then names cashew nuts and mangoes as familiar family members. BUT did you know that only the nut of cashews won’t give you the rash? She explains how you get the delicious nut from a hull and plant that is wicked. Also she tells tales of the exquisitely sensitive to poison ivy that ate the mango. It’s not pretty and that cherry orange fruit and smile shaped nut will never look the same to you. I learned there are plants whose ripe seed pods explode with such force that being struck by is seed is like being shot by a .22 gun. Yes she explains how a weed killed Abraham Lincoln’s mother and just what berries look like bilberries but eating just one will kill you – imagine the family that made them into a pie!
I found myself marking passages and taking notes for use of plants in future plot lines. Oh the uses of the suicide plant in a devious murder… maybe a poison that modern investigators would not think to look for unless the death was suspicious. The story possibilities whirled in my mind. This is a book I will revisit when a wicked character has to clandestinely kill someone or a sharp detective needs a break on difficult case. Also if I’m a fretting mom about what berry did my pet just eat? I can’t tell how many times I cringed remembering my son asking if a berry of a plant I didn’t know in his grandparent’s neighbor’s yard was poisonous. I said I didn’t know. He said “I sure hope not because I just ate one on a dare.” (Yes my insides still scream at that one) Turns out it must not have been as he’s still around and doing well.
This is a book I would wholeheartedly recommend to friends who like me love information. When I closed it I knew it was one that I will always keep and enjoy reading again some day to discover another tidbit that didn’t stick this time. However my strolls through gardens or walks in the woods will never be the same as I eye the possibly wicked greenery around me. You never know when a plant might shoot you or literally hook you causing pain for life!
Mary Louise Eklund 