Short notes on a pile of books read recently. Authors: Adeline Yen Mah, Wendy Burden, Peter Nichols, Jojo Moyes, Jamie James, Tessa Hainsworth, Dr Amanda Brown, Betsy Whyte, Sara Pascoe, Dean Nicholson, Edward Chisholm
Watching the Tree
by Adeline Yen Mah
A beautiful and unusual book, by a Chinese doctor who has lived in California for 30 years. Her aim is to explain China and the USA to each other, and to do this she delves into the I Ching, Buddhism, Tao, Hinduism, Confucianism, western attitudes to the self and to money, and much more; and her own childhood. She was an unwanted and abused youngest daughter in a wealthy family, saved by the love of a grandfather and an aunt. The book is graceful, erudite, clear, and very concise – and humble and soft in its final affect. That was what I liked best about it. And I learned things from her simple explanations that I had never gleaned from more long-winded ones. She tries to be objective, and the cruelty and foolishness of many religions in excluding women from the table is noted.
Dead End Gene Pool
by Wendy Burden
If you like reading about the godawfulness of the private lives of the very rich, this one’s for you. A daughter of the fading Vanderbilt dynasty writes hilariously and very well, about her childhood and youth among the upper crust of the eastern seaboard, as well as a stint in London. Wealth does not automatically confer happiness, nor yet sanity; domestic life among these folks is just as fraught with rage, misunderstanding, neglect, infidelity, and numerous unconscious foolishnesses as those of the rest of us – it just might sometimes, though certainly not always, be better dressed. And the servants are the ones who get to clean up the physical aspect of the messes.
A Voyage for Madmen
by Peter Nichols
A really good book, moving into greatness in a certain couple of pages near the end where the author describes sailing as it happened for a certain French mystic solo sailor, Bernard Moitissier. The book is about a competition to sail around the world in 1968-69 – the route being down the Atlantic from England, around the wild Southern Ocean, and back up the Atlantic to England again. This was the trip where the infamous Donald Crowhurst enacted his own tragedy, and only one sailor completed the challenge. I love sailing books though sailing is mostly just a scary mystery to me, and this one is really really good. There’s a beautiful passage where a hundred porpoises come to help a lonely sailor too. Recommended!
Someone Else’s Shoes
by Jojo Moyes
Found this in a book-trading shelf. Thoroughly enjoyed it! Plot revolves around a pair of red faux-designer high heels, and several women who at first seem to be at odds but then unite.
Highly diverting entertainment, modern and edgy, with a high feel-good factor.
The Snake Charmer
by Jamie James
What an absolutely riveting book!
The charmer does not charm snakes (he only catches, celebrates, wrangles and names them) but people. This is the bio of a Joe Slowinski, a scientist of brash enthusiasm and undoubted obsessive genius who takes expeditions to Burma to hunt reptiles, especially snakes. Things don’t end well…
I found the book on a book-trading shelf in a hotel and was afraid to read it. But after we saw the boa constrictor I was suddenly open to it. I was so glad I read it! Here in Costa Rica it is a good idea to be educated about snakes, and the chapters of this book each begin with a description and elegant drawing of a certain venomous snake. Evolution has provided many non-poisonous ones with similar markings, so being able to tell the difference is very important.
And therein hangs the tale…
I grew greatly in respect for and wariness of snakes in general (my naturalist father loved them and let baby rattlers slither over his hands. I am very sorry to report that as a child I once posted a dead rosy boa through the slot in the corner postbox. Sorry, mailman!) I also decided never to choose Burma as an adventure destination. (I was impressed that although so many warm hairy mammals take only a minute or two to have sex, some cold scaly huge snakes go on for 25 hours.) I have vowed to stop stomping through the jungle in hiking sandals. And I hope never to need antivenin.
The scientist is an intense larger-than-life wild and boisterous character. The book is so well done that the guy comes alive for us and we get to ponder many things about the practice of snake-grabbing so beloved of an inexplicable slice of the populace. Yes, in reading about this guy’s life and what befell him, I thought many a time, WTF??? Or, WTFF???
If you like adventure books, or bios, or reptiles, or you just enjoy reading about things you never ever want to do, this one’s for you.
Up with the Larks
by Tessa Hainsworth
An easy and relaxing read, a memoir full of nature joys: sea and sky and moor and flower, storm and berry. And the rather winsome joys of human interaction. A top executive for Body Shop in London quits her stressful job and lifestyle and moves her family to Cornwall. The only job she can find is to be a postie – delivering mail to all and sundry, up hill and down dale. The book is gentle, a little bit funny, lively – as various minor dramas go by.
The Prison Doctor: Women Inside
by Dr Amanda Brown
I was worried this might be lurid and sensationalistic, but it was so not like that! Instead we have a doctor from a modest background who worked as a GP for 20 years in a wealthy area before becoming a prison doctor. Her compassion, love, appreciation, respect, and concern shine through every episode she describes. She has an innocence that lifts the book up into heart-shine.
In the acknowledgments at the end she says, “I learned within a very short space of time after starting to work at Bronzefield, that so often the crimes the women had committed were the result of the unimaginable lives and suffering they have had to endure…”
I remember the writer John Grisham saying there should not be any prisons for women; that nearly always their crimes were coerced or instigated or caused by the men in their lives. This book bears this out: 48 percent of women caught stealing were doing it to help a man feed his habit. Nearly every inmate had been abused, beaten, raped, and the addicts were generally trying to block out the pain rather than seeking hedonistic experiences.
In fact, a great many women felt extremely grateful to prison! Because there they were safe, had a roof and meals, could take classes and learn vocations, had a support system.
So it sounds like what is needed is not prisons but refuges… This would probably cost less than prisons do (at the writing of the book, 65,000 pounds per woman per year!).
Unfortunately, fully fifty percent of women being released from prison are being released into homelessness. And there they get back into drugs to block out the pain and fear. Or, they dart into a shop and steal a laptop in order to get sent back to prison again.
The writing is simple and clear, and so is the message: help these women, these human beings; don’t punish them.
Red Rowans and Wild Honey
by Betsy Whyte
Was looking through a whole pile of books to see if there was something I could settle into – but no… until I found this. Ah, such a relaxation – a natural, uncontrived lyricism that seems to arise out of the earth like a spring. It’s the memoir of a Scottish gypsy girl’s teen time of a young girl. The writer needed no editing except for punctuation (she employed none at all) but the editors otherwise did not have to change a thing. (This is told us in the Forward.) The times described – the 40s mostly and a bit of the 50s – were while gypsies could still roam free – and then when they could not. The slang or dialect is wonderful, funny, delightful, and there is a long glossary for it in the back. And the nature descriptions are so lush and tender, you want to go to the Highlands in spring.
Animal
by Sara Pascoe
I would say this is an essential book. It’s written by a comedian, and is both dizzy and enormously grounded, sane, and wise – an amazing feat for a woman of 34. (The comedian did study law for a while.) It’s very funny, even as it opens our eyes very wide. The frankest of frank sharing feels only right and honest, the science is good and reassuring, the social commentary blistering and timely. It’s about bodies, evolution, sex, orgasm, rape, fat, female wiring re relationship, male same, and I would recommend it for all teenagers plus anyone else who likes a laugh and doesn’t mind looking at the human being objectively, from a biological perspective. I’ve never read such a frankly personal pop-science book, and I love it! Oh yes, lawmakers should read it too. And teachers. I wanted to include an excerpt or two but there were too many to choose from!
Nala’s World
by Dean Nicholson
This is a delightful book! I was happy reading it from first to last! A young Scotsman, tattooed and man-bunned, from a happy family, takes off to bicycle around the world. In the mountains in Bosnia he hears a meow behind him as he cycles – a kitten is trying to keep pace with him, 10 miles from any settlement. He adopts it and thus follows an enchanting story of helpful people and instagram fame and all sorts of adventures, including helping various animal charities. If you want to feel good, not bad, read this instead of the news. Lots of pix of lovely stripey cat and tatted big softhearted fellow.
A Waiter in Paris
by Edward Chisholm
Since George Orwell wrote so beautifully on the subject early last century, nothing much has changed. But this book is still well worth reading. A young Brit university graduate, unable to find work, ends up in Paris working in a very posh restaurant, where the hushed elegance of the dining room contrasts totally with the noise, filth, sludge, rats, competitiveness, racism, rage, darkness, of what is just down the narrow, ancient steps to the kitchens. Corrupt and callous management, enslaved immigrants – an old old story, but told passionately and poetically for this time. It’s really a love letter to waiters and kitchen staff everywhere, and to Paris (well, the writer is young and still finds the urban beautiful). He’s a good writer, if a bit long-winded at times. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and was delighted to get out of that dreadful restaurant at the end.
Now switch off the lights!
Featured images by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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